Kaifeng

There are currently nearly 5 million people living in its metropolitan area. Located along the southern bank of the Yellow River, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the west, Xinxiang to the northwest, Shangqiu to the east, Zhoukou to the southeast, Xuchang to the southwest, and Shandong to the northeast.

Names

The postal romanization for the city is "Kaifeng". Its official one-character abbreviation in Chinese is 汴 (Biàn). Historically it has also been known as:

The name "Kaifeng" first appeared as the area's name after the Qin's conquest of China in the second century BC and literally means "expand the borders". Its name was originally Qifeng (啟封), but the "qi" was changed to the essentially synonymous "kai" to avoid the name taboo of Liu Qi (Emperor Jing of Han).